The Daddy P.I. Casefiles: The First Collection by Frost, J (great novels .txt) π
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βMassage, fruits and veggies, stick with the P.T., touch him when Iβm not going to pull out his tubes.β
βSomeone also took her smart-ass pill,β Benjie grunts.
Someoneβs daddy loves her even though sheβs very, very occasionally a smart-ass.
I smile at the back of Benjieβs head as the elevator doors open and he wheels Loganβs bed out.
Chapter Seventeen Logan
Itβs funny, what a damaged brain retains.
Injured.
The Caring Crows, as Iβve come to call the flock of people roosting in and around my hospital room, make faces when I call my brain damaged. Iβm injured. And my prognosis is good. Or so everyone keeps telling me.
At the moment, when I canβt walk because my injured brain has forgotten how to send the correct signals to my left leg, when I canβt shout my anger and frustration, or make love to Emily, because my injured brain canβt handle the increase in pressure, I feel pretty fucking damaged.
I also canβt stay awake for more than two hours at a time. Dr. Lacey, who dazzles me each day with her rainbow collection of surgical scrubs, tells me this is normal. My bodyβs shutting itself down to heal the injury. Sleep, not laughter, turns out to be the best medicine. It still makes me wild with rage and frustration, that I canβt express for fear of increasing the pressure on my injured brain, to wake and discover that Iβve lost more time. Two hours, or four, or, once, eight, when I apparently nodded off in the middle of a conversation with Emily and slept through the night.
Whenever I open my eyes, my little girl is there, smiling her shy, gentle smile.
I hate that I made her worry I wouldnβt open my eyes again.
Sheβs amazing, the little girl who saved my life. She wonβt accept any credit for it, in her self-deprecating way, insisting that Niall would have found me after I failed to check-in. Niall and I trade smiles, but we both know the truth. When weβre back home and I can take care of her again, Iβll make sure that Emily feels the full force of my gratitude.
Thatβs something that sticks in my injured brain. As do the hours of quiet conversation with Niall, who had a life-threatening, spinal injury six years ago. He tells me not just how he recovered, but how he topped Shaan while spending weeks in traction. I repeat those tips to myself after Niall leaves each night to imprint them on my injured brain. Iβm going to need them until Iβm back on my feet.
Other things? They wonβt stick.
Emily has to reassure me every time I wake that Jason Merullo isnβt a threat anymore. Evidently, my injured brain is stuck on those last moments when I was sure he was going to kill me. Dr. Lacey says my mind will eventually reset. Iβm not sure what that means, but Iβve dealt with PTSD before. If thatβs what this is, Iβll dust off those coping mechanisms and use them again, once my injured brain recovers enough to do some self-hypnosis.
Jason Merullo isnβt a threat to anyone anymore. Nor will he be for quite some time. Despite Ed Isaakβs insistence no one involve the Mexican authorities, Captain Lopez was evidently so enraged by my injury and Emilyβs distress she went completely off-piste. After finding out from Ed that I suspected Merullo, she had him restrained in a conference room until the ship docked in MazatlΓ‘n. There, she turned him over to the Mexican police. After giving her statement to the Federales, which included the brick she found on Merullo, she offered Ed her resignation. Edβs not happy, although I gather he hasnβt accepted her resignation. Since the Mexicans are looking to charge Merullo with possession with intent to distribute and attempted murder, Iβm guessing Merullo is a lot less happy.
If he didnβt want to spend quality time in a Mexican prison, he should have taken the deal I offered, instead of hitting me on the head, twice, with a bloody fire extinguisher.
The other thing that wonβt stick is Miranda. After each time Emily reminds me, I take grim amusement in the idea my injured brain classifies Miranda as the same level of threat as Merullo.
Sheβs a threat to my damn peace of mind, anyway.
When I woke the second day after surgery and heard that Miranda was on her way to San Diego, my blood pressure went so high it set off all the machines plugged into me. The alarms caused the big, male nurse, who looks at Emily like he canβt decide whether to kiss her or put her over his knee, to come running. Under threat of sedation if I didnβt keep my blood pressure down, I made the calmest phone call to Mir I could manage. I didnβt stay calm for very long. She was still in London but only because the first flight she could get wasnβt until the next day. She insisted that she was coming to look after me, darling, because how could I possibly be left in the hands of the inept creature she spoke to on the phone? When I completely lost my cool, Maude, fresh off the red-eye, took the phone and warned Miranda that she would personally address Mirandaβs inability to follow a Domβs instructions if Mir showed her face in San Diego. Since I used to turn the house subs over to Maude for punishment when they really got out of line, that thought was also grimly amusing, but it doesnβt stick in my injured brain. Emily still has to tell me every time I wake that Miranda is still in London and wants me to call her,
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